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Here is an article I wrote and later included as a condensed version in my book, The True History of Cozumel, available on Amazon.
Q: Who gave Xcaret its name?
A: Two lost Americans with a bad map in 1926.
Copyright 2012, Ric Hajovsky
From the first time the Spanish set foot in the Mayan village of what we now call Xcaret, they called it Polé or Ppolé, from the Yucatek Mayan word p'ol, which means “merchandise” or “trade”. The village was first reported by Juan Grijalva, who saw the buildings in 1518, but did not land. Francisco Montejo (el Adelantado) spent several weeks there in 1527 and 1528. He too referred to the Maya town as Polé. His son, Francisco Montejo the Younger, visited the town in 1543 and continued to call the town Polé. Polé was listed on the 1549 tax census (population 76) and again in a report by Padre Cristóbal Asensio in 1570. In 1582, Polé was listed as having one of only five churches of the entire coast of Quintana Roo (Cozumel had two at the time). In 1571, the name Polé is recorded once more when several Maya from the town testified in the trial of the French corsaire Pierre de Sanfroy. In 1590, documents list the batab of Polé as Diego Malah. In 1601, the batab of Polé was listed as Juan Ye. The first map showing the location of Polé was the Juan de Dios Gonzalez map of 1766. The name Polé remained on maps through the 1829 Lapie map, the 1843 Catherwood map, the 1864 Malte-Brun map, the 1874 García Cuba map, and the 1878 Carl Herman Berendt map.
This last map, however, contained a serious error; all the towns along the coast were shifted 35 kilometers north of their actual positions. Unfortunately, it was this 1878 map of Berendt’s that Gregory Mason and Herbert Spinden used on their Mason-Spinden Expedition, when they travelled along the Quintana Roo Coast in 1926, recording Maya ruin sites and collecting bird specimens. When they came across the ruins at Polé, the Berendt map they had in their possession showed the town of Polé was 35 kilometers to the north of its actual location, and the map showed nothing of note where they were standing. Unaware they were looking at the ruins of the same buildings that the Montejos and others had called Polé, they christened the “new” site Xkaret.
The February 20, 1926 New York Times headline read: “FIVE MORE CITIES OF ANCIENT MAYAS FOUND IN YUCATAN; The Mason-Spinden Expedition Makes Discoveries on Ideal Six-Day Trip. TWO RUINS ARE IMPORTANT Paalmul and Xkaret.
Where did the two lost explorers get that name “Xkaret”? Their guide told them. In a later article that Gregory Mason wrote about their expedition in MotorBoating Magazine in January 1927, he stated that when they landed their boat to examine a small temple on the mainland’s rocky shore opposite of Cozumel, three Maya showed up out of the nearby bush. One of the Maya said his name was Agapito Katzin. Katzin volunteered that the name of the temple the explorers were looking at was called “Kanakewik” (Kanakeuic). After measuring the building, the expedition walked a few hundred yards south along the shore and ran into a caleta (cove) that had several ruined Maya buildings nearby. Mason wrote: “Katzim said the name of this place was Xkaret.”
The name stuck like glue (other than the “k” changing to “c”). For many years after Mason and Spinden published the map of their expedition showing Polé and the Xcaret in two different places, other cartographers followed suite, locating the same town, now with two different names, in two different locations, miles apart from each other. It has only been since the 1960s that the two locations of the same town have been rejoined and repositioned in the correct location, but now with the wrong name; Xcaret.
Later still, guidebooks and websites began to “translate” the name Xcaret as meaning "small inlet," "small cove," “small bay,” or “small creek” in Mayan. In reality, there is no Mayan word Xcaret, Xkaret, or anything similar. Xcaret is a corrupted spelling and pronunciation of the Spanish word “caleta,” meaning small cove. Rs and Ls are frequently interposed; add the Mayan feminine prefix X and there you go. It is Spanyan, a mash-up of Spanish and Mayan.
Q: Who gave Xcaret its name?
A: Two lost Americans with a bad map in 1926.
Copyright 2012, Ric Hajovsky
From the first time the Spanish set foot in the Mayan village of what we now call Xcaret, they called it Polé or Ppolé, from the Yucatek Mayan word p'ol, which means “merchandise” or “trade”. The village was first reported by Juan Grijalva, who saw the buildings in 1518, but did not land. Francisco Montejo (el Adelantado) spent several weeks there in 1527 and 1528. He too referred to the Maya town as Polé. His son, Francisco Montejo the Younger, visited the town in 1543 and continued to call the town Polé. Polé was listed on the 1549 tax census (population 76) and again in a report by Padre Cristóbal Asensio in 1570. In 1582, Polé was listed as having one of only five churches of the entire coast of Quintana Roo (Cozumel had two at the time). In 1571, the name Polé is recorded once more when several Maya from the town testified in the trial of the French corsaire Pierre de Sanfroy. In 1590, documents list the batab of Polé as Diego Malah. In 1601, the batab of Polé was listed as Juan Ye. The first map showing the location of Polé was the Juan de Dios Gonzalez map of 1766. The name Polé remained on maps through the 1829 Lapie map, the 1843 Catherwood map, the 1864 Malte-Brun map, the 1874 García Cuba map, and the 1878 Carl Herman Berendt map.
This last map, however, contained a serious error; all the towns along the coast were shifted 35 kilometers north of their actual positions. Unfortunately, it was this 1878 map of Berendt’s that Gregory Mason and Herbert Spinden used on their Mason-Spinden Expedition, when they travelled along the Quintana Roo Coast in 1926, recording Maya ruin sites and collecting bird specimens. When they came across the ruins at Polé, the Berendt map they had in their possession showed the town of Polé was 35 kilometers to the north of its actual location, and the map showed nothing of note where they were standing. Unaware they were looking at the ruins of the same buildings that the Montejos and others had called Polé, they christened the “new” site Xkaret.
The February 20, 1926 New York Times headline read: “FIVE MORE CITIES OF ANCIENT MAYAS FOUND IN YUCATAN; The Mason-Spinden Expedition Makes Discoveries on Ideal Six-Day Trip. TWO RUINS ARE IMPORTANT Paalmul and Xkaret.
Where did the two lost explorers get that name “Xkaret”? Their guide told them. In a later article that Gregory Mason wrote about their expedition in MotorBoating Magazine in January 1927, he stated that when they landed their boat to examine a small temple on the mainland’s rocky shore opposite of Cozumel, three Maya showed up out of the nearby bush. One of the Maya said his name was Agapito Katzin. Katzin volunteered that the name of the temple the explorers were looking at was called “Kanakewik” (Kanakeuic). After measuring the building, the expedition walked a few hundred yards south along the shore and ran into a caleta (cove) that had several ruined Maya buildings nearby. Mason wrote: “Katzim said the name of this place was Xkaret.”
The name stuck like glue (other than the “k” changing to “c”). For many years after Mason and Spinden published the map of their expedition showing Polé and the Xcaret in two different places, other cartographers followed suite, locating the same town, now with two different names, in two different locations, miles apart from each other. It has only been since the 1960s that the two locations of the same town have been rejoined and repositioned in the correct location, but now with the wrong name; Xcaret.
Later still, guidebooks and websites began to “translate” the name Xcaret as meaning "small inlet," "small cove," “small bay,” or “small creek” in Mayan. In reality, there is no Mayan word Xcaret, Xkaret, or anything similar. Xcaret is a corrupted spelling and pronunciation of the Spanish word “caleta,” meaning small cove. Rs and Ls are frequently interposed; add the Mayan feminine prefix X and there you go. It is Spanyan, a mash-up of Spanish and Mayan.
